


I Ran Toward Your Pain, Unknowing, Yet Find You By My Side, Still Loving

by Curator



Category: Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s03e26-s04e01 The Best of Both Worlds Parts 1-2, Episode: s04e06 The Raven, F/F, content warning: loose analogy to unsuccessful suicide by cop, rating is for theme (not sex), references episodes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29706747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curator/pseuds/Curator
Summary: Raffi tells Seven what happened … what Raffi did … what Raffi didn’t do … when the Borg tried to attack Earth in the Battle of Wolf 359.
Relationships: Raffi Musiker/Seven of Nine
Comments: 52
Kudos: 25





	1. Bullshit

“Cadet Musiker, reverse your vector…. Cadet Musiker, come about…. Raffi, what the hell are you doing? Answer your comm.”

The one-person fighter shuttle dips and darts as Raffi avoids obstacles — jagged pieces of hull plating, dead officers floating in space, and small items Raffi can’t quite make out until she’s practically on top of them. 

A cracked padd with a flickering display. 

A sheared-off circuit board with isolinear chips intact. 

A framed picture of a family with the mother’s arm draped over the son’s shoulders, the father smiling broadly. 

“Raffi! Turn your shuttle around. That’s an order.”

Raffi’s eyes flick from the viewport back to her navigational vectors. She reaches to the side and mutes the comm. Locarno can go fuck himself.

She’s almost there.

Almost. 

There’s pressure on her shoulder.

Almost there. 

Almost. 

The pressure intensifies, like a hand squeezing her shoulder, a human hand. That’s impossible, though. Raffi is the only one in this fighter shuttle. Her shields are up, no one can transport in — yet. 

She’s about to clear the last of the wreckage and the shockwave from the explosion will knock her backward. 

Wait. 

How did she know that?

This isn’t happening.

This is a memory.

This is —

“Holy shit.” Raffi shudders awake in her bed on _La Sirena_. Her nightclothes cling to a sheen of sweat and sheets are bunched in her clenched fists. She blinks in a cabin lit only by starlight. 

A hand with cool, metal-tipped fingers rests on her shoulder.

“Hey.” Seven’s ocular implant and her eyebrow move closer together, a furrow of concern between them. “Bad dream?”

“You could say that.” Deep breaths. Deep breaths. “Go back to sleep, honey. I’m okay.”

“Bullshit.”

A corner of Raffi’s mouth lifts. God, she loves this woman.

God, that’s fucking ironic right now. 

“It was just my brain wanting me to relive something I’m not proud of. No need to talk about it in the middle of the night.”

Seven’s fingers skim down Raffi’s arm. It’s affection, yes, but Raffi knows Seven also is assessing sweat, still-clenched fists, ragged breaths. 

“Raffi, c’mon. It’s me. Just spit it out.”

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? As much as Raffi has told Seven details of … nearly every goddamn mess of her life … this is different.

This is personal.

“Honey.” Raffi’s eyes scrunch shut, lit by light-memory of the ship through wreckage a split second before the explosion. “I’ve done a lot of things I’m ashamed of, and you’ve been great — really, truly great as we talk through it all. But this,” Raffi’s eyes burn, “this is something you don’t want to know, okay?”

Seven’s hand rests on Raffi’s waist. There’s a gentle pat, then the hand is gone and Seven rolls so her back is to Raffi.

And Raffi thinks of Annika Hansen, the little girl who trusted her parents to keep her safe, and Annika Hansen, the woman who trusted Bjayzl to keep her secrets, and Raffi loves Seven of Nine — but Raffi knows she isn’t worthy of Annika Hansen and this is why, this is fucking why, because everyone Annika Hansen trusts turns out to be shit.

But maybe …

“I’m sorry.” Raffi sits up and Seven turns to face her. “I’m not going to be another person who messes with your head, all right? I won’t put my pride in front of your right to know things. I was wrong to try to do that.”

“Don’t worry about it.” 

But the heels of Raffi’s hands press to her forehead and even though Seven’s words are kind, Seven is still a lousy liar, a person who had so many choices taken from her or blown up in her face that this risk — this beautiful risk of loving Raffi — needs to be honored.

And the only way to do that is to show Seven that Raffi will take risks, too, that Raffi will give Seven the honesty that Annika deserves. 

So Raffi tells the story, every goddamn detail….


	2. Cadet Musiker

There’s an assignment due in Quantum Chemistry, plus readings for Survival Strategies and for Advanced Subspace Geometry. Raffi needs to get her notes into something resembling what might make sense for other people before the Tactical Analysis study session tonight and it would be smart to try for the extra credit in Interspecies Ethics even though she’s pulling an A in the course, right?

Right?

Of course. Yes. 

Raffi rounds the loop on Starfleet Academy’s physical training and calisthenics course. Her running shoes smack the pavement. Tree branches sway in a breeze that tickles the sweat on her arms as they pump, her legs as they pound. 

Faster, faster. 

Bolian rock music blasts through her ear comms. The song is rough, something that sounds like a guitar being beaten by a violin, and the singer screeches in a language Raffi set to be untranslated. 

Faster, faster. 

Raffi passes runners to her left and to her right. Other cadets, some shielding their eyes against the sun, and many are slow today. Makes sense. No one has been sleeping well. Something is going on — it’s obvious — when in every class, every professor has introduced discussion on the same, new, alien race.

The Borg.

Mentally linked, cybernetic humanoids incapable of independent thought.

But they’re from the Delta Quadrant and rumor is an academy lab is trying out some new form of propulsion and wants volunteers for surveillance on whatever might be out there before attempting first contact.

If there’s a formal call to apply, Raffi probably will go for it. A long-range surveillance mission could look good to Starfleet Intelligence. 

Faster, faster.

Honestly, it’s a shame the textbook for Quantum Chemistry is such shit. If Raffi has to keep finding supplementary readings and sending them to the professor as addenda to explicate varied analysis — which is important even if the assignment only calls for defense of one possible outcome — then maybe Raffi should just put together a list of better sources and … write an informal recommendation to the professor? Formal recommendation? Mix of formal and informal recommendation? Is that a thing? That must be a thing. If it’s not, Raffi can look in the cadets’ procedural handbook for a way to recommend a new recommendation.

That made sense, right?

Faster, faster.

Heart pounding.

Sweat dripping.

Ear comms malfunctioning? The song sounds different, almost like there’s some sort of wailing behind the backbeat. 

Behind the Backbeat — that would be a great name for a student magazine for the music department. Raffi should see if someone’s already doing that. 

Siren.

The wailing behind the backbeat is a siren.

The emergency siren.

Raffi plucks out her ear comms. Her running stride slows until she’s walking, gulping lungfuls of air, head cocked as she listens to the announcement that accompanies the siren. Her legs burn from running, but it doesn’t matter. 

Nothing matters. 

“Attention all Starfleet Academy cadets. A Borg cube is approaching Earth. Report to the Oakland Shipyard immediately. You’re going to war.”

She forgets to grab her towel from the bleachers.

She forgets her ear comms on her dorm room desk, her workout songs playing on a loop.

She forgets to turn off the sonic shower when she’s done.

She remembers her uniform, though, and her commbadge and her hair tie so she’s regulation-perfect when she gets to the Oakland Shipyard.

It’s quiet as a funeral, cadets and professors drifting like ghosts, some clustered around large screens that update with reports and statistics.

An entire fleet of starships fell to the Borg at Wolf 359.

The Martian defense perimeter is readying for an offensive.

Cadets should report to check-in stations by name and class standing.

Raffi’s boots click on the shipyard floor and her uniform scratches, fabric on fabric, and Admiral Brand, the academy superintendent herself, taps a padd as Raffi reaches the front of a line of cadets. 

“Cadet Musiker.” The admiral nods crisply. “Report to Cadet Locarno, section gamma, row twelve.”

Raffi has never met the superintendent before, but doesn’t wonder how the woman knows her name. 

Clearly, the academy is following standard procedure. 

In the event of an imminent attack requiring conscription of cadets into Starfleet service, Starfleet Academy is supposed to create self-contained units. Seniors prepare for close-range, last-chance Earth defense. Juniors go into space to engage the enemy. Sophomores partner with any remaining Starfleet personnel to coordinate planetary evacuation of civilians, while freshmen finalize record-keeping — scientific data to be secured or destroyed, last-minute backups for catalogues of flora and fauna, ensuring planetary historical documents are ready for transport. 

Raffi is a junior. 

She’s going to die.

There is no way a bunch of cadets in shuttles can successfully engage the enemy when an armada was defeated at Wolf 359.

She glances at the screens again on her way to her post.

Forty Starfleet ships, destroyed.

An unknown number of Klingon ships, destroyed. 

Romulans refused to assist and long-range communication is jammed so the status of the only possible Starfleet ship within range, the  _ Enterprise _ , is unknown. 

And, you know what?

That’s okay.

Because Raffi has never felt this kind of peace before. No assignments or classes or workouts or extra credit or textbooks or supplementary reading or deadlines. 

Ha. “Dead”lines. 

Everything is going to be fine. 

Better than fine. 

Quiet. 

For the first time, everything is going to be quiet. 

Everything.

And Raffi is ready.


	3. I Wish

Nicholas Locarno walks along rows of cadets, squeezing shoulders, looking solemnly into eyes, as he delivers a speech that Raffi guesses is supposed to be inspirational. Rumor is the Nova Squadron flight team member is set to be team leader next year.

Except there won’t be a next year.

Raffi is standing, back straight and chest out, in one of fifty rows of a dozen cadets each. Their flight units will engage the Borg if the Martian defense perimeter falls.

Which it will. Raffi’s final paper in Introduction to Tactical Scenarios …

(“Introduction to Tactical Scenarios at Starfleet Academy in the 2360s?” Seven interrupts. “That’s the class when you met —”

“Yeah.” Raffi’s arms are already crossed, but she hugs herself more tightly. “No tattoo yet, just lectures about Starfleet tactics calling for avoidance of battle in order to protect as many people as possible. Of course, this was before the treaty to avoid battle that didn’t protect the people he thought deserved protecting so he told Starfleet to shove the new borders up its own ass and he’d do the dirty work the bureaucrats wouldn’t. I guess he didn’t change?”

“No. Not from his first battle to his last.” In the starlight, Seven’s eyes shine with affection. “Please keep telling the story.”)

Raffi’s final paper in Introduction to Tactical Scenarios suggested Starfleet enhance planetary and solar system security across Federation space. Such investment would require more fighter vessels, short-range shuttles modified to be heavily armed and flown by one person at a time.

Like the ones that are in front of the rows of cadets. 

But, they won’t be enough.

Not a chance.

“You may be having doubts.” Locarno is finally winding up his speech, hand resting on a shuttle as if he’s christening it with luck, seemingly oblivious to the starry-eyed optimism he’s so dangerously encouraging. “But a team is only as strong as its weakest member. I think our team is strong. I think we’re stronger than our fears, stronger than our doubts, stronger than the Borg. Tell me, are you stronger than your fears?”

A chorus rises, “Sir, yes, sir!”

“Are you stronger than your doubts?”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

“Are you stronger than the Borg?”

“Sir, yes sir!”

The Borg.

Mentally linked, cybernetic humanoids incapable of independent thought.

Is that what Locarno wants this flight team to be, unthinking humanoids flying computerized ships to their doom?

Professor Wong said something a few days ago about Borg reproduction, about the theory that Borg may not reproduce biologically, but technologically, adding other species to an ever-expanding pool of knowledge. Maybe that’s —

“Raffi.” She inhales sharply, Locarno’s hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yeah, Nick. I’m good.” She ignores his squinty eyes.

Shit. Everyone else is in their shuttles.

“I’ll walk you.” Locarno cocks his head toward the only shuttle that still has its hatch open. “You’ve got a good one.”

Raffi falls into step with him. “You don’t say?”

“Just got a new EPS manifold. Should purr like a kitten.” They reach the shuttle and Locarno stands aside as Raffi enters. “Just remember, if you need anything, I’ll be on the comm. I want everyone to get back safe.”

She turns. “You’re not going up?”

Everyone knows Locarno is the best pilot at the academy — better than seniors, better than faculty. The guy is from some colony in the middle of nowhere, first in his family to ever leave, recruited by some starship captain who saw him fly an orbital glider built for a high school project. Shouldn’t he be on the front lines?

“I wish.” Locarno’s head shakes and Raffi almost — almost — believes he’s sad not to be climbing into a shuttle of his own. “As flight leader for our class, I’m calling the attack formations. But, like I said when I was talking to everyone back there, our team is strong. I think we can do it.”

What is he talking about “we”? He’ll be in an evacuation shuttle full of VIPs while Raffi’s lifeless corpse floats in space.

“Thanks, Nick.” She takes her seat and taps to close the hatch. 

“You’ve got this, Raffi,” he calls through the narrowing opening. “You can do it.”

Before today, Raffi didn’t care one way or the other about Locarno. 

Now, he can fuck off to hell.

She taps for pre-flight.

May as well get this over with.


	4. Full Stop

It’s beautiful.

Space.

Raffi never really thought about it. Space was always just a way to get from here to there.

But constellations are like pinpricks of life, the long ebbed-away heat of faraway stars giving light, giving form to other stars arranged by the ancients into stories like Orion and his scorpion, Cassiopeia on her throne, Andromeda next to —

“Cadet Musiker, adjust your heading by point two degrees.”

She’s within safety limits, but Raffi makes the adjustment anyway. “Aye, sir, Cadet Locarno.”

Pompous ass.

“Starfleet Academy fighter shuttles,” Locarno’s voice comes to them from what Raffi envisions to be a cushy command center in San Francisco, “assume formation epsilon and prepare to engage the enemy. The Martian defense perimeter is breached and you’re trained for this. Ready all weapons and be sure to use a rotating phaser frequency. That’s brand new intelligence direct from HQ, everyone. You’re in the big leagues!”

There are cheers over the open comm line.

Locarno could sell women’s clothes to a Ferengi merchant.

Raffi sets her phasers to a rotating frequency, then her elbow rests on her console, chin on her palm, and she turns to the viewport.

To the beautiful, peaceful stars.

When the old sea sailors set their sights on Polaris, the North Star, they believed they could navigate their way anywhere. It must have been great, that simpler life. It must have been —

“Cadet Musiker, adjust your heading by point one-six degrees.”

“Got it, Cadet Locarno.”

The comm frequency is just the two of them, not all the other doomed fighter shuttles streaking toward death, and Locarno keeps the line open even as Raffi follows his order. 

“You okay, Cadet? Anything you need to get off your chest?”

Is he bucking for the counselor corps now?

“Fine, sir.”

She’s toward the back of the squadron. The first ships are almost to a debris field. Raffi can’t get a visual on the Borg cube, but she scans for life signs and there are definitely humans inside a massive object beyond the debris. The life signs are unusual, though — heartbeats and breaths too even, all blood pressures registering exactly the same. It’s as if basic biological functions have been mechanized.

Goosebumps rise on Raffi’s skin.

The technological reproduction theory must be true. The Borg must have brought humans onboard their cube and made them into Borg.

Unknowing.

Uncaring.

Unthinking.

“Halt your position. Full stop. Repeat, all Starfleet Academy fighter shuttles halt your position and come to a full stop. We’re getting new intelligence that suggests the _Enterprise_ is taking some sort of action. Stand by. Life may get back to normal for us sooner rather than later.”

Everyone follows orders.

Except Raffi.

Because she’s not going to go back to normal. Not for readings and study sessions and workouts and Quantum Chemistry and Survival Strategies and Advanced Subspace Geometry and Tactical Analysis and Interspecies Ethics and workouts and trying to look good for Starfleet Intelligence. Not when she’s had quiet and found peace. She won’t go back, not back to all that noise in her mind.

She’s either going to die or she can become a Borg. 

Unknowing.

Uncaring.

Unthinking.

Better than death because she’s still contributing, still part of something. But no worries, no cares, no decisions.

Her shuttle surges ahead and into the debris field.

“Cadet Musiker, reverse your vector…. Cadet Musiker, come about…. Raffi, what the hell are you doing? Answer your comm.”

The one-person fighter shuttle dips and darts as Raffi avoids obstacles — jagged pieces of hull plating, dead officers floating in space, and small items Raffi can’t quite make out until she’s practically on top of them. 

A cracked padd with a flickering display. 

A sheared-off circuit board with isolinear chips intact. 

A framed picture of a family with the mother’s arm draped over the son’s shoulders, the father smiling broadly. 

“Raffi! Turn your shuttle around. That’s an order.”

Raffi’s eyes flick from the viewport back to her navigational vectors. She reaches to the side and mutes the comm. Locarno can go fuck himself.

She’s almost there.

Almost.

Almost there. 

Almost. 

She clears the debris field and there it is — a gigantic, grey cube in space. 

Like a slightly squashed grave marker.

Or an urn.

Then there’s a massive explosion and the cube is gone, leaving an intense shockwave and wreckage headed straight for Raffi’s shuttle. There’s a bright light and she’s slammed backward in her seat, teeth knocked together, and everything goes black.


	5. For All of It

“What happened after that?” Seven is cross-legged on the bed, Raffi in the same posture, their knees almost touching, the room lit by starlight.

“I woke up in the campus infirmary.” Raffi’s voice is low, a little hoarse from talking for so long. “Someone tractored in my shuttle. Official report was a blown EPS conduit interfered with my navigation and comm system.”

Seven’s head cocks. “But you said that Locarno said —”

“That the shuttle had just gotten a new EPS manifold. He was right.” Raffi flinches at the memory. “But the entire junior class got commendations for bravery and that probably wouldn’t have happened if Starfleet knew one cadet was such a mess that she figured assimilation would be like a vacation from her life.”

Seven’s gaze drops to her own hands, metal-tipped fingers laced with organic.

“When I got back to my dorm room, my ear comms were still blasting music, my shower still running. I thought the noise would be too much, but classes were cancelled for a few weeks and I took some time, got my head together … temporarily, at least.”

Raffi tries to smile at her own joke, but it doesn’t work. 

“I never talked to Locarno again. I tried. Commed him twice. Once when we were still in school. I wanted to thank him for covering for me — lying about the EPS conduit. Years later, I tried again, offered him a piloting job as part of the evacuation of Romulus. He didn’t respond either time.”

Seven’s eyes don’t lift from her own metal-tipped fingers.

Raffi’s chest tightens. “I understand if you hate me. You went through hell and I invited it, chased it, too blinded by the pressures of the moment to understand that things would get better. If you want to —”

“I was worried it would hurt.” Seven somehow seems smaller, shrinking in on herself. “I knew they were coming, knew the Borg would find my family. My father was tucking me into bed and I asked him, ‘Papa, will it hurt to be a drone?’”

Raffi shivers with sudden cold, the air on _La Sirena_ seeming too thin to breathe. Six years old and Seven — Annika — already knew.

“What … what did your father say?”

“He told me to go to sleep.” Seven’s shrug is slight, mournful. “He had said we would go home soon, but we never did. Then, when the Borg came, I was confused because my parents seemed surprised. I tried to hide, I was afraid, and then I was assimilated … and it did hurt ... but then all my confusion and fears did go away for a long, long time.”

Raffi’s hand moves slowly, haltingly, toward Seven’s interlaced fingers. “I’m sorry.”

Seven takes Raffi’s hand in both of hers, cool metal and warm skin and a tight grip. “For what? For wanting something you didn’t fully understand? For my parents thinking they were smarter than something _they_ didn’t fully understand? For having a history with the Borg that turned out a hell of a lot better than mine?”

Raffi’s eyes sting. “For all of it.”

Seven squeezes Raffi’s hand. “Do you know how many times I tried to go back? It’s tempting, Raffi. It’s tempting as all hell to not have to think or analyze or feel guilty or wish for something other than what you have. But it’s — it’s not something I want anymore, even on my worst days.”

And Raffi’s question seems almost self-serving, almost petty after Seven has brought her so much comfort, so much understanding, but Raffi still has a knot in her stomach and she has to know.

“So you don’t hate me for what I did?”

“For a moment of weakness? For being human?” Seven’s head shakes, starlight catching dark implants against pale skin. “The Borg would find that imperfect. But it’s part of what makes you who you are — the woman I love ... the woman I trust … because you are a unique individual who trusts _me_ even when you’re scared of what I might think.”

The knot unties.

Raffi’s breaths come easy.

Her head tips back in a laugh, relief, and she says, “I love and trust you, too, honey. Thank you for listening and understanding.”

“You know,” Seven’s smile is soft, wistful, “you’re the only person who has ever called me ‘honey.’ I like it.”

Raffi leans forward, lets her lips brush Seven’s. “I’m glad you like that, honey. Really, really glad.”

Because Annika was hurt and Seven was haunted and hunted — but calling this brilliant, thoughtful, beautiful woman _honey_ is affection given and affection gratefully received. And in the middle of the night, stars outside and the engine hum of _La Sirena_ like a heartbeat, Raffi knows she’s found what she could only dream of as a cadet. Raffi has found understanding with herself, her choices, her mistakes.

And her love.


End file.
